There was a lot of business that got transacted on Monday, at the first meeting of the year for Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC).
But there was one big takeaway: A plan to renovate Showers West, to create a home for fire administration and police operations, looks like it will need way more negotiation with current tenants, in order to move ahead at the city’s hoped-for pace.
It emerged during Monday’s RDC meeting that some the tenants don’t want to end their leases early. According to Bloomington’s corporation counsel Margie Rice, who briefed the RDC on Monday, there are at least six tenants who are “not willing to move.”
Around a year ago, Bloomington’s city council authorized the purchase of Showers West from CFC Properties for a price of $8.75 million. Showers West is a portion of the 110-year-old factory building that also houses city hall.
Since then, over the past year, the city has been working with architect Studio Axis to develop remodeling plans for the space, which is supposed to become home to the fire department’s administration, and the police department’s headquarters and operations.
At Monday’s RDC meeting, Rice said that the city has hired local real estate agent Chris Cockerham to negotiate the early end to tenant leases in the building.
On the RDC’s Monday agenda for approval were four early lease terminations—three of which were OK’d by the RDC with payouts totalling $50,000. The approval of the three terminations came with a condition—that the natural end point of those leases be included in the meeting minutes, along with the revenue that the city will be foregoing.
The fourth lease termination was postponed until the RDC’s next meeting.
About some other tenants, who are not on board with leaving before their leases are up, Rice said, “Chris Cockerham and our legal department are going to have to talk to them.”
Later in the meeting, Rice said about the remaining tenants, “I’ve not been part of those conversations.” She continued, “I think that some of them have said they’re going to be open to the conversation about it.” Rice added, “They just at this point, have not agreed to move. And so we’ll be continuing to work with them.”
The three leases that the RDC agreed to terminate, with their respective payouts, were with Kerr Law, P.C. ($5,000); Indiana Team, LLC ($30,000); and Bynum Fanyo Utilities ($15,000). City attorney Larry Allen said that the payouts essentially covered the cost for the companies to move to a new location.
RDC members Deborah Myerson and Deb Hutton were not comfortable with approving the termination of the lease with GP Strategies Corporation, because it did not specify a dollar amount, Instead, the termination clause with GP Strategies stipulates the forgiveness of “any and all outstanding build-out cost owed to Landlord by Tenant on the Premises.” The landlord in this case is the RDC, because it’s the RDC that purchased the property.
Hutton briefly floated the idea of going ahead and approving the lease termination with GP Strategies, but specifying some cap for the amount to be forgiven. Newly appointed RDC member John West was not in favor of that, saying it would amount to “just throwing a dart” at an amount for the cap.
The RDC seemed at one point inclined to put off approving all four lease terminations, because some basic elements were missing from the agreements and the resolutions—like the natural end point of the leases to be terminated early, and the amount of revenue the city would have otherwise collected.
Rice conveyed the idea that the tenants whose lease terminations were on the agenda were eager to see the leases terminated and would be frustrated if they weren’t. That’s because they did not feel they could ink a different deal at a new location until the existing leases are officially terminated, Rice indicated.
The RDC briefly considered the possibility of calling a special meeting, which requires just 48 hours notice, in order to give staff time to provide the missing information, before taking a vote.
After some back-and-forth between West and Hutton, they settled on the idea that from a practical point of view, it would not change the way they voted to have the additional information. So the middle ground was to go ahead and vote on the three terminations that had dollar amounts spelled out, but to require that the missing information about termination dates and revenue be supplied in the meeting minutes.
Myerson asked Rice to provide the bigger picture, in the context of all the tenants of the building. “We’ve got these four resolutions here, for these lease terminations, but I don’t know how many other tenants there are,” Myerson said.
Rice ticked through names of tenants who had agreed to terminate early, which included the four corresponding to the resolutions that the RDC was asked to consider on Monday: Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, Shrewsberry & Associates, The Indiana Team, Crash Research and Analysis, and Northwestern Mutual, Kerr Law, Bynum Fanyo Utilities, and GP Strategies Corporation.
Rice listed the following tenants as requiring more negotiation: The Bank of America (Merrill Lynch), Bloomington Health Foundation, Monroe County CASA, Warrant Technologies, ProBleu, and Bloomington Board of Realtors.
The administration of Bloomington mayor John Hamilton, which ended on Jan. 1 of this year, had hoped to have the Showers West construction contracts approved by the end of last year, to set up the start of the remodeling for the start of 2024.
The contracts appeared on the agenda for the Bloomington RDC’s mid-December meeting, but did not have majority support for consideration at that time. Some members wanted new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration to review the contracts before moving forward.
Thomson’s three appointments to the five-member RDC, which were announced last Friday—along with appointments to some other boards and commissions—included John West, who is replacing Cindy Kinnarney, and Sue Sgambelluri, who is replacing Sarah Bauerle Danzman. Hutton was reappointed to the RDC.
West is owner of FC Tucker Realtors. In small talk before the meeting with Hutton, Myerson, and RDC member Randy Cassady, West noted that he had served on the RDC eight years ago. Sgambelluri, who did not win reelection to the city council in 2023, served on the RDC before starting her city council service in 2020. Sgambelluri was not able to attend Monday’s RDC meeting.
All the appointments to the RDC last one year.
Cassady and Myerson serve on the RDC as appointees of the Bloomington city council. The council has not considered its RDC appointments at either of its two meetings so far this year. But the city council could consider them as soon as its meeting this Wednesday (Jan. 24).
How does the city continue to hire the same realtors for services AND appoint them to impactful, decision making bodies such as plan commission? Yet this is not seen as a conflict? Just like the Don Griffin situation regarding this project, who is making these decisions and how on earth can this not be considered a conflict? Tax payers deserve better, more transparency, and for their funds to not be placed in the pockets of each administration’s buddies
Why is the discussion still a push for police relocation? This area has no good outlet for police vehicles, the increase of police presence and measures is not inclusive or mindful to the supposed diverse crowd that the City wants to draw into Bloomington for both farmers market/community events and the tech district and future workplace. Tone deaf move and the police union still continued to vocalize resistance to moving here. When will the city listen?
Thank you so much for adding names to the bottom of pictures for those of us who are not lifelong members of the community.